


the feeling

by sentichefuoripiove



Category: Grey's Anatomy
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, F/M, Owen x Teddy but only if you really wanna see it, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Some Swearing, im sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-11
Updated: 2019-04-11
Packaged: 2020-01-11 04:33:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18422883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sentichefuoripiove/pseuds/sentichefuoripiove
Summary: She woke up with a feeling this morning.It hasn’t happened in a long time, and as much as she wants to shake it off, write it off as perfectly normal anxiety (for someone with her track record for tragedies, anyway), she can’t help but remember that last time she had a feeling, it memorably ended with her nearly getting blown up in the OR by an homemade bomb in a patient’s chest cavity.Andrew gets to assist on one of Teddy's surgeries, but the flight is delayed and saying Meredith has a difficult day is an understatement.





	the feeling

She woke up with a feeling this morning.

It hasn’t happened in a long time, and as much as she wants to shake it off, write it off as perfectly normal anxiety (for someone with her track record for tragedies, anyway), she can’t help but remember that last time she had a feeling, it memorably ended with her nearly getting blown up in the OR by an homemade bomb in a patient’s chest cavity.

So yes, excuse her if she is going to trust her feeling.

Even if it’s only been maybe 25 minutes, and it’s fine if he hasn’t called her back yet. There’s going to be at least three missed calls from her on his phone, and ten texts, but it’s fine. 

Nothing happened.

She needs to calm down. 

***

“Good morning, Dr Grey” he greeted her with a smile, his hand barely ghosting the small of her back, a quick way to acknowledge her before turning his full attention back to Teddy, who he had been talking with before Meredith approached them.

“This is going to be a fairly simple procedure” Teddy was telling Andrew, “the technique i want to use is experimental, but the patient seems fine so we shouldn’t encounter any complications.”  
“What are you two talking about?” Meredith asked with a smile, curious. She unconsciously gravitated toward Andrew while she spoke, and she could feel him shift his weight so that their arms were barely brushing, but it felt like they were leaning against each other. 

“I am flying over to Tacoma for a surgery and asked DeLuca to assist me” Teddy explained. “He has been doing research on this procedure for a while and I thought it would be good to have him with me” she finished, turning her attention back to the charts and leaving Meredith to study Andrew’s grin.

“Oh, this is the news you wanted to share with me?”  
“Yes!” Andrew told her, clearly excited, “I was really hoping I could find you before leaving to tell you about it.”  
“Are you leaving right now?” she asked, surprised. Something was building up in the back of her head, but she couldn’t figure out what it was just yet.  
“Yes, we are. Dr Altman wants to be there as soon as possible to run some last tests before the surgery” he told her, turning slightly to face her completely. He tilted his head to coax her into looking at him, and said “Do you mind if we have a rain check on tonight? The surgery is tomorrow, but we’re staying there overnight.”

“Wha- oh, no, of course” Meredith snapped back to reality, and she smiled at him while cupping his elbow in reassurance. “Don’t worry about it, it’s not a problem.”

“Thanks” he smiled broadly, warm affection in his eyes. “I’ll make it up to you” he continued, in a lower voice only for her to hear. 

“You better” Meredith countered with a smirk, and when he laughed she thought for a second that she must have imagined the dark cloud forming in her head a minute ago.

But when she saw him turn his back on her and start to walk away after Teddy, the realisation finally hit her: _she woke up with a feeling this morning._

“DeLuca!” she yelled after him, and both Andrew and Teddy turned to look at her with a questioning look.

He covered the short distance back to her with a couple steps, and gave her a look that silently asked _is everything ok?_

“I’m sorry… Can y- Will you just-… Can you call me when you get there?” she finally spat out.

“Sure” he replied, but the slight worry was still in his eyes, and Meredith didn’t want to scare him, but by now she had gotten so deep into her own head that she didn’t know how to fix it.

“Just… As soon as you land, ok?”  
“Ok”  
“Promise?”  
“I promise. Mer, don’t worry” he offered, with a warm smile. He looked her over one last time, as if to check that everything was fine, and then turned again to catch up to Teddy, who was still waiting for him in the middle of the hallway.

Yeah, don’t worry.

Like that’s easy.

*** 

This is not good.

Meredith is elbows deep in her patient’s guts, and she isn’t worried that she is going to mess it up, because a big portion of being a surgeon is muscle memory and she has this specific procedure down, but really…

….she is starting to feel like she could mess this up.

It starts when she asks for the wrong size of scalpel, which is not really a big deal, slips of the tongue happen, and she realizes in time to correct herself. 

She asks for her phone’s ringtone to be turned up to the loudest setting, and she makes a point to herself not to check the clock. She knows it will only send her paranoia into overdrive, but she still catches herself almost making a mistake more than once. 

Minor mistakes, really, but still. 

She tries to keep her cool for as long as she can, but at some point she looks at the clock and she sees that it is a full 45 minutes after he was supposed to land, and it’s when the scalpel almost slips in her hand that she decides to call it, and has a scrub nurse page Bailey.

The other woman comes into the OR after 15 minutes or so (and Andrew still hasn’t called, it’s now a full hour later), and asks what the issue is.

“It’s nothing, Bailey” Meredith tries, hoping she can get past Bailey’s sixth sense. “Would you mind stepping in for me? I was called to the daycare for Ellis and I would have asked one of my sisters to get her, but I think they are both in surgery too.”

This is definitely not good. 

She can feel everyone’s eyes on her, because they know she didn’t get paged to the daycare, it’s such an obvious lie they must be wondering why she is telling it, but at this point she is starting to feel like she is spiraling out of control and she really, really doesn’t care. 

She just hopes that Bailey believes it, because if there’s one person that can see through and break her fragile composure, that would be Miranda Bailey. 

Maybe she should have called for Weber. He is way less perceptive. 

“Okay, that’s fine” Bailey agrees tentatively, a little doubtful “Are you sure everything is ok, Grey?”

Bailey has that look on her face she always has: it may seem like she is trying to figure you out, but actually she already has and she is just deciding whether to call you on your bullshit or not. 

Meredith decides she can’t have that, not right now. 

“Yes, of course. Thank you, Bailey” Meredith answers, already halfway out the door.

***

One hour and thirty minutes.

Meredith sits on a gurney in one of the quieter wards of the hospital, cellphone in hand.

The black cloud that this morning was just a small spot in the back of her head has taken over her entire brain and now she can’t think of anything else besides…planes.

And Andrew.

She closes her eyes, straightens her spine, grips the edge of the mattress she’s sitting on and tries to take deep breaths through the nose. She wills herself into remembering good things about him to fight off the panic she feels running through her body.

She thinks of Andrew washing dishes with her sitting on the counter, laughing at his absolutely ridiculous rendition of the song that’s playing on the radio. 

She thinks of the feeling of being watched by him, sprawled on her bed, while she does her makeup in front of her bathroom mirror. 

She thinks of that Sunday morning she brought him along with the extended family to the trails just outside the city, where Derek’s trailer used to be, and while the kids where playing with Alex and Jackson he had snuck them away and had kissed her senseless against the trunk of a tree.

Trees.

And smoke.

Cristina screaming, and not knowing where Derek is and _knowing exactly where Lexie is_ and…

She opens her eyes gasping and she is grateful she chose this empty corridor because she is pretty sure she is crying.

She doesn’t know how long she was lost in her own head. Except she does, because her phone says it’s seven minutes after the last time she checked, so this means it is almost one hour forty minutes since he was supposed to land and _why the hell hasn’t he called yet._

She unlocks her phone and goes to her messages, sends a quick _please call me?_ before scrolling up, past all her _is everything ok?_ and _where are you?_ , until she sees the last text he sent her, right after they said their goodbyes this morning.

_can i get a pass on the rules? because the first thing i want to do when i see you tomorrow is kiss you to make up for the way i had to say goodbye just now_

It’s rereading the text that finally does her in. Full-on sobs wreck her body, and she barely registers the arms that wrap around her, make her stand up and guide her toward an empty room.

Owen puts his hands on her shoulders, straightens her and manages to make her look into his eyes.

“Hey, hey, hey, Grey… what happened?” he questions, but as much as she wants to she can’t get a word out between the sobs and Owen is getting increasingly more worried.

“Meredith, what’s wrong?” he asks again. 

She tries a couple of times to get enough air in to answer, but she feels like her lungs are being crushed under a truck, and she can’t let anything out between the sobs. 

Maybe it’s because they have seen enough of each other’s problems and tragedies over the years, or maybe it’s because assessing situations and damages is the main component of his job, but Owen seems to understand somehow, decides to not press her further, and just lets her sag against him and has her ride it out.

If she weren’t in such a state she would probably thank him.

***

Meredith doesn’t know how long she has been sitting on the floor next to Owen (and this time she doesn’t want to check her phone to find out). She has calmed down a while ago, but she still hasn’t said a word to him, who on his part has done nothing to push her. He is just sitting next to her, hand on her leg to ground her, waiting for her to be ready to talk. 

She should definitely thank him. 

“I’m sorry, Owen” she finally tries. Her voice is hoarse from crying, and she doesn’t want to think about what she must look like right now. 

“You don’t have to be sorry” he tells her, “but do you want to talk about what happened? Is it something bad?” he worries, and no matter what he says, she still feels guilty for making him feel this way.

“Nothing _happened_ ”, the emphasis she puts on the last word is enough for him to realize what is going on. After all, he is kind of an expert on the subject. 

“Oh, ok... what was it?” He asks gently “Was it the plane crash?”

Meredith can’t even bring herself to answer, tears threatening to come out again, so she just nods quickly, and Owen’s shoulders sag as he sighs. “Do you know what triggered it?” Meredith nods again.

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, but if you do… you don’t have to worry about scaring me.” His hand squeezes her leg, and Meredith is suddenly reminded of a different time, when things like this happened all the time, to all of them, and almost feels like laughing at how absurd the whole concept is.

A whole hospital, where people come in to get fixed, run by doctors far more damaged than the patients.

She turns slightly and briefly looks at him. She knows that he knows everything about the crash, he was there in the months it took them, it took Cristina, to recover. 

Meredith vaguely remembers, like in a haze, being too wrapped up in her grief over Lexie, in Derek’s grief over Mark, to check in on Cristina. She knows it wasn’t easy on her friend. In this moment, she is suddenly truly grateful to Owen for stepping up. 

She should probably thank him for that too.

She exhales shakingly, “There’s this procedure in Tacoma. Teddy and And-“ and she catches herself before she starts crying again. Owen is patiently waiting, brow furrowed (he’s figuring out if he should be worried about Teddy too), but not judging.

“They should have landed….” she checks her phone, “...two hours ago. And I asked him to call me when he landed, but he still hasn’t and I just…” she trails off, her breathing becoming shallow again, and she feels Owen shift beside her so that he can draw circles on her back to calm her down.

It kinda works.

“Meredith, two hours is not the end of the world” he tries to reason, “they could have been delayed, or simply stuck on the tarmac. It does not mean something bad has happened”

“I know, but this morning I woke up and I had a feeling”

“A feeling?” he asks, confused.

“A feeling. I get those, sometimes. And I’ve worked very hard on not making a big deal out of them, but… Owen, I keep seeing trees everywhere.”

Now it looks like he might cry too (she knows he knows what she’s talking about), and for the millionth time she feels guilty for dragging him into this.

Owen opens up his mouth to answer, but the ringtone on her phone makes both of them jump up, Meredith now standing with the offending object in her hand, staring at it, him still on the floor looking up at her.

“Is it DeLuca?” Meredith just nods, eyes fixed on the screen with Andrew’s name on it. She is frozen in place.

“Do you want me to go?” She tears her eyes away from the phone, looks at Owen for a second and shakes her head. “No, can you ple- Can you please stay for a second?”

He nods, gives a small gesture of reassurance that says _go on, answer it._ She drags her finger across the screen and puts the phone to her hear.

“Hello?”

“Meredith? Are you ok? What happened?”. She can hear noise on his side of the call, and what is clearly the airport announcements.

Andrew’s voice sounds just as worried as hers (but oh, so so perfect and…fine, _he is fine_ ), and Meredith lets go of the breath she has probably been holding since this morning, and she feels the beginning of a smile, before the true underlying emotion kicks in.

She is royally pissed off.

“Why the fuck didn’t you call me sooner” she all but yells, more a demand than a question, and somewhere in the room she registers Owen chuckle.

“Mered-“

“Please, explain why” she continues, punctuating each word, “why it’s been two hours since you were supposed to land and I couldn’t find you.”

“Meredith, calm down, it’s not-“

“I AM NOT CALMING DOWN!” She is full-on shouting now, and she turns to find Owen leaning against the door, arms crossed and an expression between amused and concerned on his face.

“Hey, don’t yell at me! What’s your problem?” Andrew spits out, his own quick temper making an appearance, and Meredith is so affronted at the fact that _he doesn’t get it_ , that she just scoffs and hangs up on him.

She is seething. She knows she’s being irrational, but now that the panic is gone and relief has flushed all her worries out of her system, she gets to be irrationally angry at him.

“You ok?” Owen questions.

“No.” she says in a pouty voice, and Owen laughs.

“Do you need me to stay with you a bit longer?” he offers, just as the phone in her hand buzzes and she reads _please, can i call you again?_

She exhales. “No thank you, Owen, I’m good.” She looks up to meet his stare, tries to say everything she doesn’t have the words for. “Really.”

“Ok, let me know if you need anything” he concedes, pulling himself up to open the door. “If it helps your case, you can tell him I said he’s an idiot.”

She laughs, and that makes her feel a bit more like herself again. “Thanks.”

She looks back at her phone, types a simple _yes_ , and it is ringing again so fast she isn’t even sure he received her answer before calling.

“Mer? I’m sorry I yelled, I don’t understand what’s going on” he blurts out, and the background noise is gone, so she figures he must have found a quieter spot to call her.

“I thought you were gonna land two hours ago” she says simply, trying to keep her emotions out of her voice. She really doesn’t want to have that whole discussion over the phone.

“The plane was delayed like thirty minutes, and then before take off one of the passengers said he wasn’t feeling well, but didn’t want help, and we couldn’t leave before that was sorted. We stayed on the tarmac for ages. Dr Altman tried to tell him we were doctors, but he wouldn’t listen, and…” he continues his ramblings, filling in his story with as many details as possible to make sure, she figures, she believes him.

She doesn’t interrupt him, just listens. She lets the sound of his voice ease the last remaining bits of anxiety that are still lingering in her chest. He is fine.

“….So we finally landed, and I turned on my phone and I saw your texts. They scared the hell out of me, are you sure you’re ok?” he genuinely sounds concerned, but at the same time it sounds like he truly has no idea why she is so upset.

That is disconcerning, but she realizes she can’t really blame him. Meredith is so used to the people in her life being hyper-aware of her traumas all the time, that she forgets that Andrew wasn’t there for most of that. The thought of her PTSD probably hasn’t even crossed his mind. She thinks she almost likes it better this way.

“Yes, I am now. I just had a feeling this morning, and I got into my own head too much. I’m sorry I yelled too” she offers, because she doesn’t want him to spend the next two days wondering if he did something wrong.  
“A feeling? Like a bad feeling? About what?”  
“Don’t worry about it. Are you at the hospital yet?” she changes the subject.  
“No, actually, I should probably go, Dr Altman is waiting, but… Are you sure you’re fine? Do you need me to stay on the phone?” and that more than anything settles her, his caring tone and the soft worry in his voice.  
“No, Andrew, really, you go if you need to. We’ll talk later”  
“Ok, bye then. Talk to you soon.”  
“....Oh, Andrew?” She calls after him, hoping she can still catch him before he hangs up.  
“Yeah?”  
“Will you tell Teddy to check in with Owen too, please?”

***

She spends the rest of the two days in her normal, pretty much uneventful routine. She doesn’t scrub in for any other surgery, decides to dedicate some of her time to the lab. She still feels a bit shaken up and doesn’t want to risk it, plus she really enjoys the peace and quiet.

Peace and quiet is not what she gets when she comes home at night. Her kids are excited to see her, have drawings to show her and homework they want checked and she lets herself drown in their chitchat, revels in the chaos and just how grounded it makes her feel. 

She doesn’t think about the feeling anymore.

Andrew has been texting her a lot. She knows he is trying to make up for whatever he still thinks he has done wrong, but actually it’s just who he is, checking in and telling her about how _amazing Altman is, why didn’t you ever tell me_ , and other ridiculous things that make her smile despite herself.

The night they are supposed to come back she isn’t on call, but the part of her that is still a bit anxious needs to check with her own eyes that he’s ok, so she texts him.

_Are you too tired, or...? I would really like to hear about the surgery first hand_

_Absolutely not, I’ll come by later. We just have to swing by the hospital first, Hunt called Altman on a consult and she asked if I could stay on her service a little longer. Can’t wait to see you._

She smiles at his reply, ignores the alarm bell that goes off in her head again that she doesn’t even try to analyze because _fuck that, I’m done being worried for this week_ , and goes on about her evening, eating dinner with the kids and putting them to bed.

She is leafing through some of her notes from the lab, papers and laptop spread on the kitchen table, when she hears him knock. Through the glass of her front door she can see he is disheveled, like he hurried to get there, and she is ready to mock him for his impatience (really, it’s only been two days man, calm down) when she sees his pained expression. She opens the door, confused.

“Hi. Is everything al-“  
“I’m a fucking idiot” he announces, still standing outside, the door now wide open, but he doesn’t make any move to get closer to her.  
“Wha- Why?”  
“I’m so stupid Mer. I should have known...” he goes on, sorrow in his voice, and with that the alarm bell in her head from earlier finally makes sense.

He had to get back to the hospital to see Owen.

_Oh._

She is going to kill that man and his big mouth. 

(But maybe also still thank him)

“You’re not stupid, Andrew” she reassures him, and steps aside to encourage him to come into the house. He looks at her like he thinks he doesn’t deserve to, doesn’t move. 

“Andrew, seriously, it’s ok. You did nothing wrong” and maybe it’s the softness in her voice that convinces him, but he finally steps forward, drops his helmet in the hallway and makes his way into the house while she locks the door. 

She takes a moment with her hand on the doorknob, closes her eyes, exhales. _Here we go._

She finds him in the kitchen, awkwardly standing next to the table and studying her abandoned notes. 

“This looks promising” he says in a casual tone, but doesn’t meet her eyes.  
“Andrew...” she pleads, makes him turn to look at her. “I’m ok. You didn’t do anything wrong”  
“But I should have realized!” he half shouts, frustrated, immediately censors himself when he remembers the kids are probably already asleep. He covers the distance between them, puts his hand on her cheek to comfort her.

Normally she would shy away from the gesture, because she doesn’t need to be pitied for this, but she knows he needs the contact just as much as she does, so she leans into it, closes her eyes with a sigh. 

“I’m so sorry I put you through this. I wasn’t thinking about it” he whispers, takes a small step forward and now they are so close she could put her head on his chest. She really wants to. 

“It’s not your job to think about it” she informs him. She doesn’t want to make him feel like he has to walk on eggshells around her. 

“But I kinda want it to be” he tells her, so sincere and eager it breaks her heart, “I don’t like that I put you through that, and I like even less that I didn’t even know I was doing it. And God, Meredith, I am so sorry I snapped at you, I was awf-“

“Stop it” she interrupts him, detaches herself from him just enough to look him in the eyes, “it was not your fault that you didn’t call, and it is not your fault for not knowing how that made me feel”, but he still looks guilty and sad. 

“Listen” she continues, after letting out a deep breath, “I’ve been stressed recently, and this would have happened regardless of you calling or not. Something else could have triggered it. It is going to happen again.” 

She doesn’t want to scare him, but this is a conversation that needed to happen at some point, and she’s not going to back out of it now. 

“I can tell you about it if you want”, and she ignores the breath itching in his throat, eyes widening in surprise, “and tell you about other things I’ve been keeping to myself too. But you don’t have to worry about not knowing all the triggers, I don’t need you to fix me.”

“I don’t think you need fixing” he counters, almost offended at the implication. 

“No, that’s not what I meant” she recovers, “just... Ok, listen”, and he inches closer, eyes drawn on her face, focused on her words. 

“I want you to know all this stuff, because I want you to know me. But you don’t have to feel like you have to carry around the weight of being constantly on the lookout for signs. I have friends, _family_ , that already do that.”

He nods in understanding, puts his hands on her hips and slowly pulls her back into his space.

“Owen was there, and he knew what to do, because he’s struggling with this too, and knows about my thing because he was there to help when we got back. I have people, Andrew, I’m always going to be fine.”

This time he tries to hide it, looks away from her, but Meredith can see that he’s a bit offended again. 

“I know you do” he says, “I’m just trying to say-“  
“I know what you are trying to say. I appreciate that. I want you to be one of my people too” she smiles, hopes this is reassurance enough. 

He seems to finally relax at her words, and the hands that are still on her hips squeeze a little, he pulls her a little harder until she is pressed against his body, and she finally lets herself rest her head on his chest. She circles his waist with her arms too, for good measure. 

“You are going to be alright though, right?” He mumbles against her temple, and she tightens her grip to reassure him. 

She closes her eyes and burrows further into him. 

“Yes, I’m going to be alright. I’m glad you came home.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone!
> 
> This idea came from @dearemma on tumblr: it originally was meant to be a Nick Marsh x Meredith fun/banter-y fic, but I hijacked it, gave it to Merluca and made it 10x more sad and painful. I'm sorry.
> 
> Owen is a good guy, even despite all his romantic mishaps. I miss his relationship with Mer, it's really important.  
> (I didn't write this as Owen x Teddy, but if you wanna see it, by all means you do you)
> 
> As always, let me know what you think!


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